Thursday, November 18, 2004

back in my day

what is up with athens, ga? supposed home of more pretentious townie music junkies than any other college town in the nation, but i no longer have faith in that statistic. music fans my ass. i am feeling old and out of touch which, in turn, makes me feel bitter. and old.

just the other week john cale played here. you know, the john cale. guess what? the show didn't sell out. not even close as far as i could tell. now this week, the killers are playing and it sold out well before show time. like a week before. not that i don't like the killers. "somebody told me that you have a boyfriend..." and all that. fun stuff (although it gets stuck in my head and refuses to leave until i force it out with the other song that gets repeatedly stuck in my head. that would be "static on the radio" by jim white. the two are on rotation in my brain). my point is just that, while the killers are fun, they are certainly not on par with john cale as far as innovation and staying power go. i bet no one will even know who they are in a few years. the strokes who?

of course, what it really comes down to is this- most of the music fans in athens may just be "fans" because it's cool. they might not even, heaven forbid, really give a shit about the music at all. it's more about the scene. if you've ever been to a show here then you know what i'm talking about. there is so much socializing that you're lucky if you can even hear the music, much less appreciate it. a symptom or a cause? well, none of this is new to anyone living here and i'm certainly not trying to imply that there aren't any true music fans in athens. far from it. so i'll stop being pretentious(!) and get to my point.

my point is that i feel old. soon i'm going to start conversations with "back in my day".

in fact, i think i'll give it a go. here. right now. ok, back in my day i think things were unfortunately pretty much the same as they are now. back in my day we were obnoxious and loud and disrespectful to the musicians that we paid good money to see. back in my day we drank so much that we completely forgot every moment of the concert we had been waiting months, maybe even years, to go to. back in my day people were pretty much pretentious posers.

hell yeah, i guess i'm not that old after all! my day is still running strong. at least here in athens. aka "never-never land". here's to being an adolescent forever...

back in my day- drunk in 1995 Posted by Hello

very, very recently. some things stay the same. Posted by Hello


p.s. speaking of jim white, my new test of friendship worthiness is this: what do you think of the song "if jesus drove a motorhome"? yes, i will judge you based on your answer. that is the point of a test after all.




2 comments:

Carrie said...

umm, you are so right about the "coolness" factor. Case in point: at the David Byrne show, you couldn't hear SHIT unless he was singing a popular song. I was so pissed.

Although, I'm kind bummed that the Killers sold out, because I really wanted to see the Trachtenberg Family. :(

jenna said...

ha! that picture is definately not from last night. leslie and i decided to forgo the karaoke and have a wild night at the huddle house instead. we're crazy like that!